What’s
Create Upstate?

Create Upstate is a two-day conference tailor-made for designers and makers of wonderful things in Upstate New York. It’s a celebration of design and draws together the communities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Saratoga, Binghamton, Ithaca, and the Hudson Valley.

Friday
Schedule

This year we’re shaking things up! On top of bringing in some of the most talented designers in Upstate NY, we’ve added a few speakers from the larger design community. Join us for a full day of Sessions on Friday, April 17th.

8:00 - 8:45am

Registration

8:45 - 9:00am

Welcome

9:00 - 9:45am

Mitch Goldstein

The Habit of Making

What if the best way to become a better designer is to make things that are not design? This talk examines what I learned from a year of making for the sake of making, why sometimes making garbage is actually making gold, and how making work can become about a habit of creation.

Jason Pamental

The Life of <p>Beautiful, Readable, Responsive Typography from the Inside Out

Typographic design has been evolving and improving for centuries, but it’s only been in the past few years that we’ve been able to bring that design sensibility to the web in a meaningful way. We’ll look at design from the content out—starting with the smallest chunk of content: the paragraph. Even inside this smallest component, there is a whole world to explore: paragraph styles over time, link styles, heading relationships, pull quotes and more.

We’ll explore the varying ways the lowly <p> has been designed in print—from the earliest printed works on through today—and look at how those styles can be implemented in clean, repeatable, reusable CSS that looks good and requires little-to-no manual intervention from your content editors. The best design for the web has to be in a system that can move, scale and adapt to any screen: from wearables to phones to laptops and beyond. Great typography is the most secure foundation, so it pays to get it right. Making sure that your design remains usable, fast, consistent and compelling as content changes and scales is critical to its success.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step—and every great story starts with a single <p>.

12:15 - 1:15pm

Lunch

1:15 - 2:00pm

Lena Levine

What To Do When It's Your Turn

During her journey of conquering America, Lena, Russian native, has been provided with opportunity to start her life on a blank page when she moved to the US five years ago. The freedom to connect, to choose and to do what matters for her has come with high-stakes and increased risks of failure.

Instead of seeing it as a problem, Lena turned it into opportunity to face her fears. She founded a chapter of a non-profit, Girl Develop It that teaches women how to code and started her own design studio in Buffalo, NY.

Now it's your turn to stand out. To create. To be you.

2:15 - 3:00pm

Dora Drimalas

TBD

Student Design Challenge Winner

Break

Dana Tanamachi-Williams

Perfectly Imperfect

Join in for an hour of light-hearted storytelling. Dana will share her story and perspective on how she used her day job as a platform for her dream job. She’ll also chat about embracing anonymity in order to make big, making necessary mistakes, and remaining teachable as one grows and matures in their career.

4:45 - 5:00pm

Closing Remarks

7:30

After Party

Thursday
Workshops

Once again we’re adding something new to the mix with a full day of Workshops to compliment our Friday sessions. Whether it’s learning how best to use type on the web or trying your hand at calligraphy, we’ve got you covered. Come a day early and sign up for a workshop on Thursday, April 16th.

½DayMorning

Modern Calligraphy

The Modern Calligraphy workshop is designed for people with little to no experience with calligraphy. Based on the Copperplate calligraphy style you will learn my alphabet, tips, tricks, and favorite tools. The workshop is hands on, with a lot of one-on-one instruction. Leaving the workshop you will understand the fundamentals of both the lowercase and uppercase letters, how to hold the calligraphy pen, and you will receive a take home calligraphy kit with all of the tools that you will need to start. Open to righties & lefties!

AllDay

Responsive Typography

Every website uses type somewhere; often it’s the most prevalent aspect of your design on the screen. Responsive design is all about making sure your design works on all devices—but too often people forget that your type has to respond as well. From choosing typefaces and implementing fonts well, we’ll cover how to get them, how to get them on screen (fast!), how to ensure your design holds up (even when they don’t load), and how to add that extra bit of panache to help your site really stand out.

½DayAfternoon

Content Strategy Crash Course

Employing good content strategy isn't a luxury–it's a necessity in this multi-device world of ours. Join Grid Content Co.'s Todd Cramer and Michelle Bersani for this half-day workshop where they'll will break down the components of content strategy, conduct a hands-on content inventory and analysis of an existing website, and provide you with a playbook of content strategy basics. Don't continue leave content considerations for the end of your projects, only to terrorize copious amounts of design decisions. If you work on the Web or are in marketing, this workshop is exactly what you need to effectively communicate with your audience from the start.

Student Design Challenge

Design is a powerful tool to make a positive impact on our communities and give voice to important messages. This year, Create Upstate will highlight the area's best upcoming designers participating in AIGA Upstate New York's Student Design Challenge: Design Your Community.